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Pelagic Perch

Species Guide: Estuary Perch

Like many anglers, OWEN PIERCE is a tad bemused by the mysterious life cycle of estuary perch. So he just keeps casting until he finds them!

THE fish blasted out of the snaggy bank and made a huge, rollicking run downstream with the ebbing tide. It was Hinzey’s first hook up for the day and the speed and power this modest fish generated caught him by surprise. We were tossing lures into some snags in pure seawater not more than a few hundred metres from the ocean. We had fished this particular snag probably 30 times over the past five years but this was the first time we had found perch on it.

Our first half dozen casts had been ignored until a thumping perch had slammed my Squidgy and punched out into the ebbing tide like a true pelagic fish. After my third I was raving to Hinzey about the mad fight on these fish and when his turn came he just hung on like grim death as the fish rampaged away. When I slipped the net under his perch we noticed it was the same colour as the others – a light olive and silvery mix – almost as if they were sea-runners. They certainly had the fight of a species that had spent some time in the ocean. We went on to catch over a dozen of the seemingly pelagic perch and occasionally what seemed to be a more typical estuary coloured fish came aboard. These chocolate hued models were far better mannered and wandered into the net without any fuss.

It was not any real skill or insight that led us to these fish; the whereabouts of perch in any given estuary is a total mystery to me – as much today as when I first caught one. So I can’t really help you with the wheres and the whys of estuary perch fishing. What I can do is tell you the sorts of things we look for; the sort of tackle and lures we use and urge you to return ALL the perch you catch to the water. That last point deserves some more attention. We are now in a world where we are urged to limit our take on all species and with a burgeoning population this is rightly so. The difference between perch and bream or flatties is the fact that perch have a very narrow range of genetic diversity. That fact alone makes them susceptible to disease, inbreeding and a host of other problems. They also have the added drawbacks of being slow growing and only breed when the salinity of the water is within a very narrow range. Although good numbers of them can still be found today, these limitations leave them more vulnerable than most species. The other side of the coin is they make a challenging target, are a handsome fish and – if you’re really lucky – have the fight of the pelagic perch described above.

If memory serves me correctly the theory on perch goes that sometime around late winter they move downstream and gather in spawning aggregations not far from sea entrances. Where exactly this might be is determined by the salinity needs of the eggs and fry. During summer they are alleged to be found high up in waterways where the last kick of saltwater can be found. And in between times they are thought to be pretty much anywhere including out to sea where rumour has them occasionally caught in commercial nets and even plucked from the waves by lucky surf fishermen.

For all I know the above may be largely true, but it isn’t the whole story. I’ve caught them in the depths of winter within a sniff of pure saltwater and again in the same places during high summer. And winter is no burden to their freshwater penetration; they can still be plucked from the upriver snags when the water temperature is in the single figures. So the only certain way I know of tracking them down is to put a lure everywhere in a given estuary and everywhere means each weed bank, drop-off, snag, flat and rock bar from barred entrance to freshwater rapids. In  the longer rivers this can be quite a burden and I’d like to say it’s something I’ve regularly done but the truth is otherwise. Some of the bigger rivers would require a few months to cover and I reckon they could exhaust even the keenest angler. That still leaves us plenty of places to choose from, although even the smaller streams can have a daunting amount of territory to cover.

There is nothing worse than battling away in an area you don’t believe in while your hot spot goes begging, so we usually begin by fishing areas that have produced fish for us before. When we have exhausted all the best country it’s time to thoroughly cover the rest. Starting in the river’s middle reaches and working upstream has been a successful strategy over the years. Now is the time to focus on snags, rock bars, drop-offs and seagrass beds as you make your way upriver. No snag is too small it seems and often a huge fallen eucalypt is barren while a small stick in shallow water holds fish. Small snags hidden underwater tend to be great places for perch to congregate and if you find one on the sounder or at low tide it will be worth noting and returning to. I can remember battling through a fishless day on a Gippsland stream when Hinzey hurled his lure at a straight stick poking up through about a metre of water. A 42cm perch speared out with it and we went on to catch 15 more.

Seagrass banks comprise some of the best perch holding features in a waterway. This   habitat is best fished by running a shallow diving lure alongside or just above it and when the fish are around they will rise up out of the weed. Seagrass is a little thin in Gippsland at the moment because of the long drought but recent rains have helped to begin the comeback. Rocky shorelines and bars are everywhere in Gippsland and although I don’t rate them as highly as the other topography they are still worth a cast at. If you can’t find a perch holding up on them then there is always the chance of a bream, which is one species that just loves a good rock bank.

Drop-offs are the final perch holding feature and finding these is a matter of using a sounder, marking the spot and returning to it. They are often an element associated with the lower tidal lake regions of our estuaries and often fire best in the early morning or evening when shallow diving lures can take a fish per cast. It is often fish taken from this type of area that exhibit the lighter colours and intense fight described earlier in this article. One way to tell if the perch are feeding in the lower saline regions of the waterway is to sit quietly in the boat and listen for fish feeding off the surface. If you can hear the mullet and sprat getting a hiding there’s a fair chance the perch are around.

Our fish are taken by two main methods: either soft plastic or minnow type lures. Blades apparently work well but they are not something I have tried yet. In the fast current found near the river mouths soft plastics are a good option. Squidgy Fish in 70mm on a size 1 to 1/0 hook and up to a five gram jighead, depending on current flow, have proved very successful. The method is to cast up current of the snag/drop-off and let the lure drift past on the sink, hopefully enticing a fish away from the feature and striking out in clear country. The chance of landing a pelagic perch hooked deep in the timber is minimal at best. As the tidal flow eases the jig weight can be pared back to around two grams. Soft plastics have their limitations and when cast into a snag or weedbed often become immediately fouled or snagged. This is where minnow lures gain the edge.

A deep diving or weighted hard-body lure cast into the snags is deadly on perch. When they are on, casts can be made into all the various nooks and crannies with a fair chance of success. Usually the lure doesn’t require much action from the angler, it will hit the water and either sink slowly or be retrieved until it has got down to its running level and the fish will shortly hit it. However, they spook a lot quicker in snag country than they do in open water and often only a few fish are caught until they shut down. Killalure Pakrats have been a terrific perch lure over the years, along with Deception Nippers. Both these lures have a huge bib and crash dive immediately after casting. Lately I’ve experimented with 50mm Atomic Shads and Diawa SC Shiners, along with some of the Smith range of lures. These lures are more baitfish like in profile and have more natural colours; however, the results aren’t appreciably better.

A one to three kilo rod is fine for open water fishing while two to four kilo is better suited to pulling big perch away from the sticks. Any decent graphite rod will do as long as it has a fairly fast action and enough butt to lean on the fish where necessary. I have a couple of Berkley Dropshots and, in the 12 months since I bought them, they have performed very well without costing an arm and a leg. A bit dearer were the Nitros I picked up around five years ago and they have also performed and lasted well. Add to these a 2000 size reel and you have an outfit you can cast all day without getting RSI. A good drag is regarded as a necessity but I know some gun anglers who just screw it down as hard as they can and reef the fish out like that.

Braided line is the best option for casting light lures a long way with accuracy. For years FireLine or Fins in 4-8lb graced my spools. The four was for open water and I wouldn’t go into the snags with less than eight. This combination worked well but it seems if you stand still you get left behind, so, with that in mind I have been trying the Super PE lines which boast micro diameters and high breaking strains. These lines are a space age bit of gear and they should come with a magnifying glass. They also necessitated learning some new knots as the fine gauge of these lines had them slicing through the leader when I tied either an Improved Albright or a Slim Beauty. A couple of brands I’ve used are Sunline and Varivas and although Varivas is very expensive it comes with a diagram of a modified Slim Beauty knot that actually works. Twelve-pound fluorocarbon leader is the minimum to use when snag fishing and it will still leave you open to the occasional shredding. Well known percher Brett Geddes actually uses 16lb leader and still gets the odd belting.

That just about sums up our method of perch fishing – no idea where they are so just keep on casting and get the gear right so when he does come along you’re going to land him. The dark ones upstream are for practice until a pelagic silver missile smacks your lure and heads for Gabo Island. If you finally get him, make sure you put him back. Simple, eh?

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